


Reservoir Chronicle

by mikkary



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Climate Change, Gen, KuroFai Olympics 2020, M/M, Muteness, Post-Apocalypse, Suicidal Thoughts, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25869343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkary/pseuds/mikkary
Summary: The world ended before Kurogane was born, in fire, and flood, and endless drought. Humanity caused this apocalypse and persists in spite of it, scraping out an existence in an arid, barren land. And now, thanks to dreams and strangers and the persistence of water itself, perhaps they have a chance to fix it.
Relationships: Fay D. Fluorite & Kurogane, Fay D. Fluorite/Kurogane, Sakura | Tsubasa & Syaoran | Li Tsubasa
Comments: 11
Kudos: 28
Collections: 2020 KuroFai Olympics - Fluff vs Angst





	Reservoir Chronicle

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for Team Angst in the 2020 Kurofai Olympics, with the prompt "Apocalyptic AU." Thanks to the mods for doing an amazing job hosting, and to my fellow writers and artists who made this an awesome experience! And thanks always to [Kristen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysweetbologna) for advice and encouragement. ♥
> 
> The quote at the beginning of this fic is from ["Water Table"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56409/water-table) by Eliza Griswold.

_...to be unborn_  
_into the atmosphere. To hang_  
_in the humid air, as ponds vent upward_  
_from the overheated earth,_  
_rise until they freeze_  
_and crystallize, then drop_  
_into the aquifer._

*

When Kurogane returns from his three-day solo replenishing their caches along the Road, Tomoyo is waiting for him. She has with her two teenagers. Although they look unrelated, their unruly brown hair and determined expressions are the same.

He dismounts from the motorcycle – one of the settlement’s three motor vehicles, which they scrupulously maintain – and pulls the helmet off his head, smoothing back sweaty hair. Ginryuu comes off his back next, his family’s heirloom sword (the only relic of his parents he has left) getting tucked up under his arm. He would have liked a chance to wipe off some of the dust and grime and maybe have a drink of water, but Tomoyo is giving him the expectant expression that signals an incoming request. It’s better not to beat around the bush. “Well?” he prompts. “What’s this about?”

“Welcome back, Kurogane,” Tomoyo says with a smile. “I’d like you to meet Syaoran and Sakura. They arrived this morning. Leader Ichihara sent them.”

“ _Yuuko_ ,” Kurogane grunts. He doesn’t have the best relationship with the leader of the neighboring settlement, mostly because she makes a point of teasing him mercilessly every time they happen to meet. But she’s a powerful ally and one of the few people that Tomoyo and her older sister will work with, and his dislike for her is mostly for show.

Tomoyo knows that, too. She gives him a sunny smile. “Sakura, Syaoran, this is Kurogane. Don’t worry, his bark is worse than his bite.” The girl – Sakura – smiles a bit, while Syaoran continues to watch him warily. “Kurogane, you’ll be escorting them into the Waste.”

“On the Road? Sure.” It’s not convoy season yet; the marshals (would-be warlords) are occupied picking over the vast ruins of Jade City in the west and won’t be making their way east towards Lecourt for another month or so. The Road is not hospitable but Kurogane is familiar with its length and he’s done escort assignments plenty of times before.

“No,” Tomoyo says, watching him carefully. “ _Into_ the Waste.”

Kurogane blinks, then frowns.

“Please, Mr. Kurogane,” Sakura pipes up. “I know what I’m asking. I know it’s difficult. But Miss Tomoyo won’t let us go by ourselves, and we _have_ to get there.” Her jade green eyes are wide and pleading, and Kurogane recognizes a kindred spirit in her determination. She won’t give up, no matter what obstacles stand in her way.

He sighs and runs a hand once more through his sweaty hair. “I’m gonna go get cleaned up. And then,” he fixes Tomoyo with a look, “we’ll talk.” He hooks the helmet over one of the handlebars of the motorcycle and turns on his heel, moving further into the settlement in search of a wash and a change of clothes.

Once Kurogane emerges from the scout barracks, having scrubbed off most of the grime from the Road and donned a fresh set of clothing, he finds Tomoyo in her garden. It’s a small plot next to the larger vegetable patch, watered with the same drip irrigation system and enclosed by a makeshift greenhouse of plastic sheeting to keep precious moisture locked inside. She’s giving Sakura and Syaoran a tour of her medicinal plants, grown laboriously from seeds and kept alive with no small amount of hard work.

“And this is chamomile,” Tomoyo says, squatting down to show off the patch of tiny plants with small white flowers. “You can dry the flowers and make tea. It’s good for upset stomachs, or if you’re having trouble sleeping. And you can make a salve, too, skin conditions. It’s like Neosporin, except it doesn’t go bad and you don’t have to scavenge it.” She laughs.

Syaoran moves his hands. It takes Kurogane a moment to recognize that he’s using sign language.

“Syaoran says they smell nice. He likes chamomile tea – oh, you’ve had it before?” Sakura asks, looking curiously at her companion.

He nods.

Tomoyo smiles. “Thank you, Syaoran. I can make you both some chamomile tea today, if you’d like to try it.”

Kurogane clears his throat, and Tomoyo looks up. “Ah,” she says, businesslike again as she stands and flicks her long hair over one shoulder. “Finally.”

“So you want me to take these kids off the Road and into the Waste, for an indeterminate distance, until they find what they’re looking for,” Kurogane summarizes once they’ve moved into Tomoyo’s rooms. As the younger sister of the settlement’s leader, and a leader in her own right, Tomoyo has a private chamber to herself. She mostly uses it to dry her herbs and make medicines, as she also serves as the settlement’s medical care provider. The chamber is always fragrant in a way that makes Kurogane a bit dizzy. “And there’s no food and water for miles,” he concludes.

“There’s water in my dreams,” Sakura says. “That’s where we’re going. To the water in the center of the Waste.”

The last time there was water in the Waste was during the Deluge, the endless rains before Kurogane was born. And back then, there had been water everywhere. Kurogane glances sidelong at Tomoyo.

“Sakura is a water-caller,” Tomoyo says. “Leader Ichihara says that she’s the most talented water-caller that she’s ever seen.”

Yuuko herself is a water-caller of great power, the best along the entire Road, if not in the whole region.  
If there is water within miles, she or her apprentice can sense it. They’ve aided Kendappa and Tomoyo many times now in keeping the settlement’s cisterns full. “Hm,” Kurogane says.

“And she believes in Sakura’s dream,” Tomoyo adds. “As do I. The Waste is… strange, even with,” she gestures around them, encompassing the small settlement, the arid land around them, the permanently cloudless sky. “I’ve been telling my older sister that we have spent too much time avoiding it and not enough time investigating it. This is our chance to find out what’s really going on.”

“So Leader Kendappa doesn’t approve,” Kurogane says, raising his eyebrows.

Tomoyo smoothes a hand down her long black hair, looking away. “Leader Kendappa… is skeptical. She won’t forbid Sakura and Syaoran from going, of course. But she won’t mobilize any vehicles or put together any troops. She told me to pick one scout to go, and that’s all.”

Kurogane’s eyebrows are still raised. “Because she knew you’d ask me no matter what.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Tomoyo says, which means yes, she did. “What matters is whether you’ll go or not.”

Their eyes meet for a long moment. Kurogane remembers his boyhood, remembers being brought to the settlement half-feral. Remembers a small girl, younger than him, who reached out and taken his hand and said, _you’re safe now_. He lets out a breath. “You really think that this is worth it? That we’ll find something?” _That what you are sacrificing is worth what you might gain?_

Tomoyo’s gaze is steady, his eyes clear. “I do.”

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“Um,” Sakura says, and they both turn to her. Syaoran is signing. “Syaoran says – oh, and I say this too – that we won’t let you down, Mr. Kurogane. We’ve traveled a long way. We can pull our own weight, carry our packs. And we’ll be useful to you, I promise.” This seems to be her addition, rather than Syaoran’s. “I’ll make sure we have as much water as we can, for as long as possible, and Syaoran has a lot of experience with what I think we’re going to find.”

“Which is?” Kurogane prompts.

Syaoran signs.

“A thing that took the water out of the sky,” Sakura translates. Then she nods. “The water is there. We’re going to set it free.”

Kurogane looks at Tomoyo. She’s smiling. He sighs. “Alright. When do we leave?”

*

They have been walking the Road for three days when they see the vagrant. At first, Kurogane mistakes him for one of those piles of debris that are common here – some are old caches built around abandoned vehicles, others are made of litter piled onto the embankment by the wind.

As they grow closer, Kurogane decides it must be a body, and begins to steer the kids away. Parched, mummified corpses are not exactly rare here, but they aren’t something that Kurogane wants children to see.

But then the figure stirs, and the dark cloth draped over his head shifts, revealing a shock of hair, gleaming blond and bright like the relic of another time.

“Oh!” Sakura says, her hands flying to her mouth. “A person!” And before Kurogane can hold her back and remind her to be cautious, she runs over towards the person on the side of the road, Syaoran quick and silent at her heels.

Kurogane sighs and takes the time to pull Ginryuu from its sheath before hurrying after them.

“Oh,” Sakura is saying as she turns the person over, revealing a pale face glowing pink with sunburn, hollowed out with hunger and thirst. “You poor thing. Syaoran, get him some water.” And she proceeds to shift the man’s head into her lap, pillowing it on her thighs as she brushes his hair back from his face and using her own body to give him some shade.

Kurogane, who has heard of tricks like this used to ambush would-be helpers, keeps a wary eye on their surroundings while Syaoran pulls out one of their canteens. If this _is_ an ambush, the attackers have chosen a poor spot; the dirt plains stretch around them for miles, with only a few distant dead trees or half-collapsed structures to break up the line of sight. And this isn’t the season for passing convoys, which would be the main danger to look out for on the road. Slowly, he slides Ginryuu back into its sheath, though he keeps one hand on the sword as he turns to the man.

Under Sakura’s ministrations, he is starting to show more signs of life, stirring as she touches a moistened cloth to his cracked lips.

“Why,” he begins, blinking his eyes open.

“Don’t talk yet,” Sakura says, gently wiping the dust and road grime from his face. “Can you sit up? Here.” She passes him the canteen, which he takes with weak and shaking hands, and helps him lift it towards his mouth.

He takes the first slip hesitantly, as if unsure what to expect, and then his eyes widen and he lifts the canteen higher, gulping greedily. Kurogane understands his surprise. Accustomed as they are to warm and brackish water, tainted with the acrid chemical taste of cleaning agents if it has been cleaned at all, the pure, fresh water that Sakura can find is a real treat.

“Don’t drink too much at once,” Kurogane warns.

The man’s eyes – blue, _bright_ blue, like little pieces of the sky – flick up to his, and he frowns slightly, swallowing just once more before turning back to Sakura. “Thank you,” he says, his voice hoarse as he passes the canteen back to her. She hands it off to Syaoran and offers him some dried fruit from her pocket next. He eats a few pieces, chewing slowly and with great concentration.

“My name is Sakura,” Sakura offers as he eats. “This is Syaoran, and this is Kurogane.”

The man’s eyes follow her finger as she points to each of them. Then he swallows and puts a hand to his own chest. “Fai D. Flowright.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Flowright,” Sakura says with a dimpled smile.

“Just Fai.”

“Mr. Fai,” Sakura compromises with her unflagging politeness. “Where were you going?”

Fai pauses with a strip of dried apple in hand, looking across the three of them and then out onto the road. “Into the Waste,” he says after a moment. “There was something I wanted to do.”

“ _Into_ the Waste?” Kurogane repeats, and Fai’s eyes flick up to him again, his gaze cold. “Off the Road?”

“That was the plan. As you can see, I didn’t make it very far.”

Fai has no pack – just his clothing, his shoes, and the dark cloth that’s swaddling him and protecting his fair skin from the sun. But he’s clearly not the victim of a robbery. Shoes and good sun cloaks are valuable, after all, and no self-respecting scavenger would have robbed this man and left him with that. It’s like Fai simply started walking along the Road, then dropped where he fell.

Either Sakura doesn’t pick up on that, or she doesn’t care. “That’s where we’re going!” she says, pointing diagonally across the Waste with her unerring knowledge of how to find its center. “We’ll be heading off the road soon. We can take you with us!”

Fai glances up at Kurogane again, expression unreadable, before looking to Sakura. “Would you? I would prefer not to be a drain on your resources, more than I already have.”

“Don’t worry, we have plenty of food and water,” Sakura says, which doesn’t seem entirely truthful. “You won’t be a problem at all.”

“I also regret to say that,” Fai gestures to himself, his sunburned face, his shaky limbs, “I’m hardly in the shape for a long walk, Miss Sakura.”

Once again, Sakura shrugs off the objection. “We’ll carry you!” she says. “Won’t we?”

Syaoran nods.

Kurogane looks at Sakura, small and slight and glowing with determination, and Syaoran, taller and equally determined, but skinny and speechless. He allows himself a moment of quiet resignation and then says, “ _I’ll_ carry him.”

Sakura beams. “Thank you, Mr. Kurogane!”

Fai looks at Kurogane again, his eyes narrowed, but he’s clearly reached the limits of his conversational abilities for now. So after he finishes up his fruit and has another sip of water, Kurogane helps him stand and fits him with his heavy pack. Then, unceremoniously, he lifts him up onto his back. As thin as he is, Fai isn’t exactly light, especially not wearing Kurogane’s pack, and his limbs are all sharp angles. His bony knees dig into Kurogane’s sides and his elbows occasionally knock against Kurogane’s collarbones in the most painful spots. He can sense Fai making an effort to keep his head up and his posture straight, but it isn’t long before Fai’s muscles begin to tremble with fatigue and he slumps onto Kurogane like a dead weight, resting his head on Kurogane’s shoulder so that his silky blond hair brushes Kurogane’s cheek. Some of it even gets into his mouth. And finally he feels rather than sees Fai slip back into unconsciousness.

This isn’t the first time Kurogane has carried someone along the Road but it is, he reflects, the most awkward experience thus far. Luckily, travel in this area demands constant vigilance, and he doesn’t have much time to dwell on the dead weight on his back. He scans the stretch of asphalt in front of them and the thickets that line each side, which make perfect cover for bandits and caches alike. Long ago, the Road had stretched all the way across the country, connecting one city to another in a great chain of commerce and travel. Now the chain is broken, but stretches of Road remain. This is particularly vital, guiding travelers around the Waste on the long journey between Jade City and Lecourt. Lose the road, and you lose your way.

As the sun rises to its zenith, they stop to rest in a copse of dead trees alongside the road, draping their tarp across the branches to create a makeshift shelter so they can sit in the shade. It betrays their presence, but the kids and Fai need rest and shade. Small risks now are worth it, if it means they’ll have the strength and stamina to withstand greater dangers.

Sakura and Syaoran go off to investigate the rest of the small stand of trees, and Fai stirs as Kurogane puts him down, opening his eyes and blinking in confusion. Wordlessly, Kurogane hands him the canteen again. Fai eyes it – and him – with undisguised suspicion, but after a moment he slips his arms out of Kurogane’s pack, taking the canteen and drinking a few mouthfuls.

He looks better than he had when they’d first stumbled upon him. Healthy enough to answer some questions. “What were you _really_ doing out there on the Road?” Kurogane demands without sitting down.

Fai wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a streak of grime across his chin, and looks up at Kurogane with his impossibly blue eyes. There is no friendliness in his gaze. “I told you. Going to the center of the Waste.”

“With no pack and no water.”

There’s a pause. “I… was in a hurry. I wanted to fix something.”

“You wanted to die,” Kurogane says, and if his tone is accusatory who can blame him? Waste is abhorrent to any denizen of a settlement, and life is the most precious resource of all. To throw it away…

Fai doesn’t even flinch as he screws the cap back onto the canteen, making careful movements with his still-shaky hands. “I will not deny that,” he says. “But now you are going where I am going, and you’ve given me a second chance at life, whether I wanted it or not.”

Kurogane opens his mouth and then closes it, not sure what to say in the face of such an honest answer. He understands despair, of course. He’s grown up with it. But he doesn’t understand… whatever this is. Whatever careless, flippant impulse that would prompt a person to throw their life away with no regard for anything, not even themselves. “Where did you come from?”

“Is this an interrogation?” Fai asks, raising his eyebrows. His arch expression might have been more effective if his cheeks weren’t bright red with sunburn, and his lips weren’t white with the pallor of dehydration and heat exhaustion. “Where did _you_ come from? What are you doing with those children?”

“Escorting them.”

“Oh? With a sword?” Fai eyes Ginryuu, and Kurogane resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“For their _protection_.”

It’s clear that Fai doesn’t believe him, not with the mulish look on his face. Before he can continue the argument, Sakura interrupts them, hurrying back to their makeshift shelter.

“Mr. Kurogane! Mr. Kurogane, come see this!”

Kurogane glances at Fai, who raises his eyebrows just slightly in response. But the questions can wait. Fai isn’t going anywhere on his own for now, so Kurogane turns and follows Sakura back to where Syaoran is standing silent watch over an area of freshly turned earth.

“We were looking for anything useful, and we found a cache, just like you showed us!” Sakura says excitedly, squatting down and brushing more earth off the metal box. “That’s the sign.” She points at the tree above the buried box, which has a single crescent moon carved into the bark. Tomoyo’s sign. There are caches like this all along the Road. Kurogane might have put this one here himself, years ago. It’s like a little message from home: _be safe. Be well_.

“Remember,” Kurogane says, “take only what we need, and replenish what we can.”

They are in need of a lot this time, though, so they take all but one of the cans of tuna, at Kurogane’s direction, as well as some bags of dried fruit and two boxes of crackers – extra supplies to feed four now, instead of three. Sakura checks the sealed plastic water bottles lining the bottom of the cache and declares them intact. They don’t have much to leave but she writes a note in her looping cursive, giving the location of their last fresh water find.

Kurogane helps the kids bury the cache again and cover it with dead leaves, showing them how to make the area look undisturbed once more. When they return to their shelter, Fai is asleep against a tree, mouth open slightly, wispy hair haloing his sunburnt face.

“Poor thing,” Sakura murmurs, her green eyes wide with sympathy as she looks at a man they barely know and shouldn’t trust.

Kurogane grunts without sympathy and sits cross-legged on the ground, beginning to rearrange their packs to incorporate the new supplies. “You two should get some rest too. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”

*

Although Kurogane carries Fai for the rest of that day and the next, they make good time – he’s already been walking slower than usual to avoid exhausting the kids, and Fai’s added weight doesn’t make much of a difference to his speed.

Fai proves a fairly quiet traveling companion, at least for now; he sleeps for most of the time or at least he lies listlessly against Kurogane’s back without moving. Kurogane hopes he won’t be a dead weight for the entire trip. Are they really going to drag him all the way to the center of the Waste, chasing whatever Sakura sees in her dreams? He’d wanted to go, certainly, but he had also wanted to die, and there’s a dangerous equivalence between the two options. But Kurogane doesn’t want to think that deeply about Fai in the first place. He’s here, he’s hostile, and he’s eating their food, and that’s all Kurogane needs to be concerned with.

After the sun sets below the horizon, while the sky is still painted orange and red and purple, they slow to search for a campsite. Sakura has a look of concentration on her face as she takes in their surroundings. “This way,” she says after a moment, taking the lead and veering off the Road. On one side is the Waste proper, where nothing grows for miles. They stay away from that. On the other side is simply parched desert, the same as everywhere else, with dead trees and thickets of dried brush, the occasional cache or pile of debris. Sakura goes that way.

Kurogane, who has gone through this dance many times already, follows, adjusting Fai’s weight on his back so that his sword arm is free.

“Mm?” Fai mumbles, brought back to awareness by the movement. His mouth moves against Kurogane’s shoulder, and Kurogane has to clench his jaw to keep his muscles from twitching in response. “Oh, it’s dark out.”

“We’re looking for a place to camp.”

“There’s nothing for miles,” Fai says dryly, stating the obvious. The Road skirts the outskirts of the Waste, and the further they go the less there will be until they come to the other side.

Kurogane doesn’t respond. Sakura has started to move faster now, and with purpose, and they follow her across packed earth and yellowed, dried out vegetation until they come to a small depression in the ground, the remnants of a puddle surrounded by dried brush. “Here.”

He deposits Fai unceremoniously on the ground, and the man stumbles as he’s forced to support his own weight and the weight of Kurogane’s pack. “What’s here?” he asks, grabbing Kurogane’s arm to steady himself. Kurogane resists the urge to shake him off.

“Water,” Sakura begins, shoving branches and brambles aside as she moves to the center of the depression, Syaoran following close behind.

“Our campsite,” Kurogane says. As the kids begin rooting around in the dirt, he divests Fai of his pack and begins setting up camp, spreading a canvas tarp on the ground and looking through their supplies. The supplies from the cache have helped pad their resources enough to cover a fourth person, though they’ll have to be careful with what they eat.

Fai is still standing, albeit in a wobbly fashion, and looking over at Syaoran and Sakura. Kurogane remembers when he first watched Sakura find the water. It had looked like nothing at first – like a young girl closing her eyes and praying to a god that nobody believed in anymore. But then Syaoran had started to dig where she directed, and within moments water, clear and uncontaminated, had begun to well up with each strike of his shovel, more water in one place than Kurogane had ever seen outside of the precious cisterns that Tomoyo managed herself.

Fai doesn’t look as amazed as Kurogane would have expected. Instead, he watches Syaoran and Sakura with a guarded expression, one that doesn’t change when Sakura gives a shout of triumph.

“They found water,” Kurogane says, in case Fai’s brain is addled from being baked in the sun and he needs someone to interpret the scene for him. “Sakura is a water-caller,” he adds, because it’s an impressive talent and Fai doesn’t look nearly as awed as he should. “One of the best.”

“I… know about water-callers,” Fai says, sitting down with deliberate care. He rests his hand on the ground, digging his fingers into the hard, dry earth. “Everyone wants one for themselves.”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you’re traveling?” Fai looks at Kurogane, his blue eyes catching and reflecting the last hints of blue in the sky. Kurogane is pinioned by his gaze, his eyes that are the color of a bruise. “You caught them? You’re dragging them with you to the reservoir at the station, to sell the water off to the highest bidder?”

Kurogane clenches his fist, feels his fingernails dig crescent moons into the meat of his hand. “No,” he says, his voice gruff as he holds back all the things he _wants_ to say. “What the hell are you talking about? What _station_?”

Fai’s glare is replaced for a moment by a look of surprise. “You don’t know?”

“We are going to the center of the Waste because Sakura dreamed it,” Kurogane says, talking slowly as if he’s speaking to a child. “ _She’s_ the one who wants to go there.”

Fai’s frown is now more thoughtful than hostile as he looks away from Kurogane, back out towards the Road and the Waste beyond it. “She dreamed it,” he repeats quietly.

“And how do _you_ know about the reservoir?” Kurogane presses, keeping his eyes on Fai even as he unpacks their meal. Even though Yuuko and Tomoyo are always going on about fate, it can’t be a coincidence that they’ve found someone headed to the same place they’re going, a place where no one goes.

Fai turns to look at him again. “I know that water is a very valuable commodity to many people. I know that in the Compounds, it’s worth more than its weight in gold. I know that whoever managed to access a supply of water as big as that would be rich and powerful beyond their imagining.”

Kurogane hasn’t thought about the Compounds in a while. Nobody does, when they’re outside of them, unless they’re involved in trade – and Kendappa has forbidden all trade with the fortified bunkers of the rich, who cling to the old ways of life and try to pretend that nothing in the world has changed after the Collapse. They broke the world and then left its people to die in fire and flood, or to starve and fight for survival in the endless drought that came after. They didn’t care about anyone but themselves, so Leader Kendappa – and most other settlement leaders – refuse to care about them.

Kurogane doesn’t recognize Fai from a settlement, and he doesn’t look like a straggler from a convoy. Perhaps Fai is something – someone – else. It would explain the quality of his gear, his absolute helplessness in the desert. “Is that what you want?” he asks, eyeing Fai carefully. “Is that why you wanted to go to the water?”

“No,” Fai says and laughs without any humor. “I wanted to stop them.”

“You weren’t doing a great job of it,” Kurogane can’t resist pointing out. Fai spends all of his time needling him, and Kurogane feels justified in pushing back.

Fai looks away, his fingers flexing where they’re resting on the ground. His nails make small indents in the earth with the force of his movement. “No. I wasn’t.”

There’s a long pause, in which Kurogane can hear the sound of Syaoran’s small shovel striking the ground, Sakura’s quiet laugh. Kurogane stacks up three cans of tuna along with a box of plastic-wrapped crackers. The tuna is a luxury for tonight, compared to their usual protein: peanut butter or dried meat or beans. They’ve got fruit too, though Kurogane is trying to save that as snacks for their long marches during the day.

When he has set out the food to his satisfaction, he turns to Fai again. “Well? What are you going to do now? Are you going to come with us, or should we leave you on the road?”

“I get a choice?”

Kurogane is going to kill him. “ _Yes_ ,” he grits out. “When we found you, you were lying on the Road with nothing, ready to die. If you’d _really_ wanted to make it to that reservoir, you would have brought packs. Water. Help. So before we drag you along with us into the Waste, I want to know whether you’ll actually pull your weight. Or if you’ll just take the first opportunity to die.” Because there _will_ be opportunities. Kurogane doesn’t know much about what’s waiting for them, but he knows that for sure.

Fai is staring at him with wide eyes. But Kurogane is used to people being shocked at his bluntness, and so he waits. Eventually, Fai closes his mouth and swallows. “I… I want to come. And I’ll pull my weight. I won’t slow you down or drain your resources, I… I don’t eat much.”

That’s a dangerous attitude from someone with a death wish. “You’ll eat what I tell you to eat,” Kuorgane says.

Fai’s lips twitch, just slightly. “Oh? Is that so, Kuro… Kuro-grumble?”

“It’s Kuro- _gane_ ,” Kurogane snaps, ripping the lid from a can of tuna with much more force than necessary.

Fai flinches just a little, but then his mouth twitches, and at least it’s not as bone-achingly false as the smile he gave when they first met. “Kuro-grumble,” he repeats. “What will you _make_ me eat today?”

“ _Nothing,_ ” Kurogane begins, but Fai is saved from retaliation by the return of Sakura and Syaoran, tramping through the dried out underbrush with three full canteens.

“There wasn’t as much as last night,” Sakura says, blithely ignoring the tense atmosphere. “But this should be enough for a whole day. I’ll look harder tomorrow.” And she settles down on the canvas between Kurogane and Fai, Syaoran settling silently across from her.

“Mmh,” Kurogane grunts by way of agreement.

“Thank you, Miss Sakura,” Fai says with a half-bow that makes Sakura giggle a little bit. “Kuro-grumble here tells me you’re one of the best water-callers he’s ever seen. It’s an honor to travel with you.”

Kurogane grits his teeth so hard it hurts his jaw and focuses on preparing their meal, refusing to rise to Fai’s taunts.

Sakura blushes and giggles at the same time, then flicks Kurogane a wide-eyed nervous glance. “Th-thank you, Mr. Fai. I’m working hard.”

From the corner of his eye, Kurogane sees Fai’s smile relax into something that’s almost soft. Interesting. And annoying. …Mostly annoying. He pulls his gaze away and forces all of his concentration into their food, so he doesn’t have to think about Fai and his insufferable behavior and his unreadable blue eyes.

*

They leave the Road after six days of travel. By now, Fai can walk on his own, and with his long legs, he can easily keep pace with Kurogane. He’s been given a small pack, too, to help with their supplies. Whenever they stop, he looks pale and tired, but he hasn’t said anything to complain, and Kurogane is determined not to give him special treatment. If he isn’t looking like he’ll fall over, then he’s fine. And he’s the only one Kurogane really has to worry about. Sakura and Syaoran are experienced travelers and even though the terrain is unforgiving, they walk without complaint.

“Here,” Sakura says, an hour or so after their midday break is over. She plants her feet on the battered asphalt of the road and looks to her left, into the Waste. “We’ll walk straight this way.”

Kurogane follows her gaze and squints, but he doesn’t see anything silhouetted by the setting sun. Nothing grows in the Waste and no one has ever built on it. Rumor has it that the ground is poison. But he trusts Sakura. Or, rather, he trusts Tomoyo, who sent him with Sakura in the first place. “Right. We might as well start now, before it gets dark.”

“Okay,” Sakura says, and steps off the edge of the road.

They’ve left the Road many times before this in search of water or shelter, but they’ve always kept it within sight. To lose the Road in the Waste is usually a death sentence. So it feels different, this time, when Kurogane steps from asphalt onto packed earth. It feels irrevocable.

Kurogane glances sidelong at his companions, also following Sakura. Syaoran has his eyes fixed forward, silent and determined; that’s no different from usual. Fai, on the other hand, has a troubled look on his face as he stares towards their supposed destination. When he notices Kurogane looking, the frown turns into one of his sharp, sly smiles. “Nervous, Kuro-grumble?”

Kurogane regrets looking at him. “Shut up.”

“It’s alright if you are, you know. Even big men with swords can be scared.”

“Shut _up_.” Fai has been like this since their last long conversation, constantly making verbal jabs at Kurogane, peppering his speech with backhanded comments and false smiles. And there is a _lot_ of speech. Everything Fai does seems calculated to get a rise out of him. It isn’t just teasing, either. Fai is mercurial in everything but his disdain for Kurogane.

Fai’s teeth flash bright in his grinning mouth, but he doesn’t press. That’s another thing. All of Fai’s little remarks, all of the ways he winds Kurogane up, come to a grinding halt as soon as Kurogane gets _actually_ angry. As if he’s checking himself for fear of reprisal. As if Kurogane will… what, exactly? Well, Kurogane doesn’t know the answer to that himself. But whatever he can imagine himself actually doing seems very different from what Fai expects of him, and that rankles.

He doesn’t think that Fai expects him to be a very good man.

Sakura glances back, the red-orange sunset lighting fires in her auburn hair.

“We’re right behind you,” Fai says before Kurogane can speak, and offers her an encouraging smile.

She smiles back and turns to continue walking, picking her way through the sparse thickets of undergrowth and dump sites of debris that surround the Road until they reach the vastness of the Waste proper, threatening to swallow them up in its flat expanse of lifeless earth.

They travel long into the night, the full moon illuminating their steps. All the same, they’re still within sight of the Road when they stop for the night, mostly because the Waste is so flat and empty that there isn’t anything to obstruct their vision.

Which means that they can be seen from the Road as well. This knowledge weighs on Kurogane’s mind as they settle down for the night, and he keeps glancing at it in the distance as he chews on the dense fruitbread that he’s doled out from his pack. Fai is similarly preoccupied; Kurogane catches him looking at the Road more than once with that same troubled look on his face.

Sakura picks up on their concern. “Is everything alright, Mr. Fai, Mr. Kurogane?”

Fai immediately turns to her with a smile. “It’s nothing to worry about, Miss Sakura.” As always, his polite turn of phrase makes Sakura smile. “I’m just worried Kuro-grumble is going to eat my share of dinner.”

Sakura giggles, then glances wide-eyed at Kurogane, who breathes out slow through his nose. “We’re at a dangerous spot,” he tells her. He sees no point sugar-coating the situation or deflecting Sakura’s concern. She’s old enough and smart enough to be treated like an equal. They’re the ones following _her_ , after all. “Far enough on the Wastes that we don’t have shelter, but close enough to be seen from the Road. We’ll just have to bed down flat and hope no one is looking.”

“We don’t have to rest, if you think it’s too dangerous to stay here.” Sakura looks between him and Fai. “Syaoran and I can keep going.”

Kurogane shakes his head. “Standing up and moving, we’re more of a target. And if someone decides to take an interest in us, I want to make sure we aren’t too exhausted to get away. We’ll keep watch as usual and start moving early.”

Satisfied by the explanation, Sakura nods.

Fai is watching him with a frown. Kurogane is so, so tired of these little glances. “What?”

Immediately, Fai smiles. “Nothing,” he says. “Kuro-grumble is so competent.”

Kurogane grits his teeth and forces himself to say nothing, even though it leaves him feeling like he’s left Fai with the upper hand.

As the kids settle down, Fai takes first watch. Having a fourth person come along with them should make the nights easier, but Kurogane finds it difficult to sleep when he knows their safety is in Fai’s hands. Fai is not an easy person to trust.

Fai knows that Kurogane stays awake through most of his shift – he’s commented on it once or twice, with varying degrees of disdain. But he doesn’t usually make conversation, so Kurogane is startled when, after an hour or so, Fai says, “Look.” His voice is low and tight.

Kurogane levers himself up on his elbow, taking in the situation. With surprising foresight, Fai has pressed himself flat against the ground and is gesturing to the procession of figures making their way down the Road. Kurogane can’t hear them from here, but he remembers the sound – the thumping of dozens of footsteps, the clanking of metal, the occasional unwelcome roar of a diesel engine. And he remembers the smell – gasoline and sweat and the sickly sweet odor of putrefaction. It carries far and lingers in the nostrils. Kurogane swallows with remembered disgust. “Convoy.”

“Mm,” Fai agrees. “We’re lucky we missed them.”

“They shouldn’t be out here. It’s not the season yet.”

“They’re getting a head start. They’ve got people to spare.”

They watch the procession for some minutes, and Kurogane is hyperaware of how exposed their position is. If anyone is on the lookout – if anyone gets too curious – they could be overtaken in no time. And then they’d be pressed into service for some scavenger lord, haunting the Road and its environs until they dropped from starvation or exposure. That is, if they weren’t killed outright for their food and water.

“You know what they do to water-callers, right?” Fai murmurs as the convoy trails out of sight.

“I’ve… heard.”

“Heard?” Fai’s eyes shine like pools of liquid silver as he glances over at Kurogane. “Of course. Settlement dwellers love to think they’re superior to convoys. Trading with them when you need something, sneering at them the rest of the time.”

Kurogane bristles. “We don’t do business with convoys.” Kendappa and Tomoyo are better than that. They make what they need and, if they can’t make it themselves, they find it. They don’t trade with death-dealers.

Fai’s eyes narrow. “You mean, your settlemen is rich enough that you have that choice.”

“That’s really something, coming from a Compounds brat.”

That actually makes Fai flinch. “I wasn’t born in the Compounds,” he says. “Though you seem to think you know a lot about me.”

“So do you,” Kurogane retorts.

Fai meets his eyes. “I know your type.”

“No,” Kurogane says. “You don’t.” But he’s not going to waste his breath trying to convince Fai to think past his assumptions. There’s no point. And frankly, Kurogane doesn’t care what Fai thinks, as long as he doesn’t drag them down. He lowers himself back onto his bedroll, turning over so he can’t see whether Fai is watching him or not.

Fai is silent. Eventually, uneasily, Kurogane falls asleep.

*

The Waste is unforgiving. There is no shelter from the blinding sun, and the heat of the day saps their energy. At night, the ground radiates the heat it absorbed during the day, reflecting it back and negating the cooling effect of the night air. Kurogane keeps waking only half-rested, like the sun continued to burn him from underneath his skin while he slept.

Long out of sight from the road, they begin to vary their schedule, resting longer during the middle of the day and traveling longer at night. It helps only slightly to mitigate the exhaustion, the heat, the endless sameness of packed, flat earth around them.

Conversation is sparse now. So is water.

They’ve set up a makeshift shelter during the middle of the day, spreading their long cloaks across poles to create a small patch of shade that they share. Kurogane has set out food for the four of them. Portions have grown smaller as he rations for an unknown future.

Sakura is in charge of the water, and she’s frowning. “We have enough for a few more days, but after that…”

After that, they’re on their own. For the past few nights, as is his habit, Kurogane has set out a tarp to catch the dew, but it’s been dry for a while. This is why no one travels through the Waste.

“I can’t find anything under the ground, either,” Sakura adds, putting her hand to the dirt, moving quickly as if she wants to strike it but aborting the gesture and letting her hand fall limp instead. “I’ve never…” Her voice trails off.

Kurogane isn’t surprised about her lack of success, given what he knows about the Waste; he grunts and continues divvying out the food.

Fai, on the other hand, is watching Sakura with a considering look. “Did you know that the Waste was once a huge lake?” he asks, touching the ground as well. It’s so hard that his hand doesn’t leave a mark when he sets it down. “Even before the floods. That’s why the earth is so hard here, and you can see,” he leans forward a bit and starts scraping at the ground with the wrong end of his spoon, “once you make it past this hard layer, it’s softer underneath.”

Sakura and Syaoran lean in to watch him with interest. In spite of himself, Kurogane watches, too.

“I’m not surprised there aren’t any water deposits. This place was sucked dry a long time ago. But being a water caller isn’t only about finding water to drink. It’s about sensing water in all of its forms.”

Sakura looks up at him, wide-eyed in surprise. “How do you know all of this, Mr. Fai? Are you a water-caller too?”

Fai smiles. It’s a smile that Kurogane hasn’t seen on his face before – smaller than most. More real. “No. But I had an eclectic education, and I know a lot of the theory, from the time before the Collapsewhen people were studying the very first water-callers. Would you like to hear it?”

Eagerly, Sakura nods.

“Well, most humans have five senses – sight, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling. Water-calling is like a sixth sense, to know where water is and where it has been. Close your eyes and feel. There’s water everywhere, even here, even if we can’t collect it or put it in our canteens. Around us and inside us. Try it.”

He holds out a hand over the dirt. Sakura mimics his gesture. Syaoran and Fai watch as she closes her eyes and breathes out slowly. Kurogane glances at her, then watches Fai. After a long moment, she snaps back awake, her eyes wide and sparkling. “I felt it, Mr. Fai! Like in a dream. The lake! It remembers!”

Fai smiles at her, soft and genuine. “Good job, Miss Sakura. Most water-callers take ages to develop that intuition. You’re truly talented.”

Sakura blushes with pleasure. “Thank you.”

“Try reaching out again. Don’t look down, this time. Look outward. I once knew a water-caller who could sense people within three miles using the water in their bodies. Do you think you could do something like that?”

“I’ll try!” And Sakura settles herself down again, breathing deep and frowning in conversation. Again, though, her face goes slack after a few moments as she relaxes into whatever trance allows her to chase after water in this arid land.

Kurogane, once again, watches Fai, who is looking at Sakura with a strangely wistful expression.

After several long moments of silence, Sakura straightens, her eyes wide. “I felt it!” she said. “All of you. All the water. And...” She turns towards the direction they’ve been heading, her gaze troubled. “A _lot_ more. That way.”

Fai nods. “The center of the Waste. There’s a reservoir.”

Sakura turns her wide-eyed gaze to him, then nods slowly. “That’s what I see in my dreams,” she says and smiles. “We’re getting closer.”

Kurogane grunts and, now that the diversion is over, hands out their food. “Eat. Then sleep. I’ll wake everyone up when it’s time to get going again.”

Fai stirs like he’s waking from a reverie , glances at Kurogane, looks quickly away. Sakura smiles at him. “Thank you, Mr. Kurogane.” Syaoran nods too in appreciation, then turns to Sakura to have one of their silent signing conversations.

Kurogane waits until that night, while Fai is keeping watch and Sakura and Syaoran are sleeping, to say what’s been on his mind since that afternoon. He’s settled in his bedroll on his back, looking up at the stars splashed across the cloudless sky. Fai is sitting some four feet away from him, arms wrapped around his knees; Syaoran and Sakura are curled up together a short distance away.

“You’re a water-caller, aren’t you?”

He keeps his voice pitched low, but the words carry far in the dead silence of the Waste. Fai startles. From the corner of his eye, Kurogane can see Fai turn to look at him. “What makes you say that, Kuro-grumble?”

“There’s no _theory_ , no one who studied this stuff before. It happened during the Deluge.”

Fai shifts to face Kurogane. The half-moon doesn’t fully illuminate his face, but Kurogane doesn’t need much light to catch the disdainful expression. “Oh? And now you’re an expert on antediluvian history, Kuro-grumble?”

Kurogane refuses to let the nickname or the incomprehensible terms distract him from his goal. He sits upright on his bedroll, looking Fai in the eyes. “Just answer the question.”

Unsurprisingly, Fai does not. “No matter what I say, you’ll think I’m lying.”

“You could try telling the truth.”

“And what is that?” Fai asks, acerbic.

Kurogane doesn’t respond. Instead, he sits where he is and watches Fai shift in place, glancing at the moon, and Sakura and Syaoran, at Kurogane and away again. This is a technique he learned as a child from Leader Kendappa, who would watch him with impassive eyes until he blurted out whatever she wanted to hear. It was infuriating to experience, but it’s almost amusing, now that he’s on the other side.

Eventually, Fai snaps. “You don’t give up, do you? I grew up a convoy orphan. My twin brother was a water-caller. The marshals worked him to death before he was eight years old. Are you happy now?”

“Hearing about your loss doesn’t make me happy.”

Fai ignores him, twisting his fingers together as he stares into the far distance. “It was my fault,” he says. “I was a coward.”

“You were a child,” Kurogane argues.

“There are no children in convoys. And no children after them. We don’t _get_ the luxury.”

Kurogane has only ever seen convoys from a distance. Everyone who lives in the settlement knows better than to interact with them; the marshals will take anyone who doesn’t have wealth to trade or can’t fight back. And it’s hard to fight back against some of the tools they’ve scavenged. Still, it rankles every time, knowing they’re choosing retreat (survival of themselves and their settlement) over battle.

Fai is rocking quietly back and forth, small pained movements that would be difficult to notice if Kurogane wasn’t already paying close attention. Kurogane could get up to comfort him, but he doesn’t think either of them would appreciate that. Instead, he offers, “My mother was a water-caller.”

Fai looks up. “What?”

“She was killed by raiders. Maybe with a convoy, maybe not. She hid me under the house, made me promise not to come out no matter what I heard.”

Fai’s movement slows.

“She didn’t tell them what she was. I… heard it all. Didn’t move for hours. When I crawled out, I found her dead in the mud behind our cabin. They’d killed my father too, on the road. I found that out later.”

Fai’s expression is unreadable. “How old were you?”

“Eight.”

“Ah.” Fai is uncurling from his tight posture, though he still won’t look Kurogane in the eyes. “I didn’t realize–”

“That you’re not the only person here who’s lost someone?”

Fai flinches, then steadies. “I deserved that.”

“Mm.”

“But that’s not…” Fai gives a heavy sigh, waves his hand. “You’re the first adult I’ve met outside the Compounds. People are different, in there. Outside, everyone is…” He pauses, grasping at words. “Sometimes, you remind me of the marshals in our convoy. You’re nothing like them, I – I know that now,” he adds quickly. “But it’s… instinctive.” He looks up and finally meets Kurogane’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”

Fai’s words are heavy with what he isn’t saying, but Kurogane understands it well enough. He’s big and strong, gruff, trained with weapons and plainly distrusting. These aren’t bad qualities by themselves, but they are shared by men that Kurogane wants nothing to do with.

This is a difficult revelation and it sits heavily in the pit of his stomach. Kurogane swallows. Fai’s gaze slides away from his.

“How did you get out?” he asks after a beat. “Out of the convoy.”

“I was useless after F– my brother died,” Fai says. “They put me up for trade. And someone… saved me, you could say.” He takes a breath and lets it out, slumping exhausted shoulders. “And you? How did you survive, after your parents…”

“Someone saved me, too,” Kurogane says.

“I hope they were nicer than my savior,” Fai murmurs dryly, and Kurogane doesn’t reply. He knows when to stop pushing.

He’s lying down again and halfway to sleep when he realizes that Fai never _actually_ answered his question.

*

Days blur together under unrelenting heat. Sakura said there was water in the center of the Waste but Kurogane finds that hard to believe. He finds it hard to believe there could have ever been water in this place.

There is something ahead of them, though. It starts as a speck on the horizon that soon looms into something larger. There’s nothing else in view to give them a sense of scale, but it gets bigger every day.

“A hill,” Kurogane says during one of their midday breaks, as they all sit so they can stare at the landmark in front of them. They’ve all missed variation in the scenery.

“A _mountain_ ,” Sakura says. “It’s all rocky on the sides, see?”

Instinctively, they both turn to look at Fai. “The island at the center of the lake,” he says, and Syaoran, next to him, nods.

“An island?” Sakura repeats, looking back at the rocky mass with new interest.

“At the center of the _Waste_ , you mean,” Kurogane says, because someone has to remind them that they are living in the present, when the lake is a far-gone memory and water, a precious resource to be rationed.

Fai rolls his eyes, but without rancor. Things between them have changed after their late night conversation; Fai has stopped with the snide comments. The teasing has continued, but it feels lighter now, no longer designed to wound. For his part, Kurogane has decided that even though Fai can’t be _believed_ (and even though Fai won’t answer his questions), he can be trusted.

It makes a world of difference.

“An island at the center of the Waste,” he repeats with Kurogane’s correction. “That’s our destination, I think, isn’t it, Miss Sakura?”

Sakura closes her eyes, sensing for water around her. With Fai’s guidance, she’s gotten much faster at using her water-calling abilities, improving in leaps and bounds. It only takes her a few seconds before she says, “Yes. The water is… underground? In the rock?”

“A reservoir,” Fai says and Syaoran nods again. “It’s a manmade aquifer blasted into the rock.”

“The cave with the electric lights,” Sakura says, her eyes far away.

Kurogane glances at her. “You know about this too?”

She smiles at him. “Like I said, I dreamed it. But Syaoran knows all about places like this.”

“Oh?” Fai turns to look at Syaoran. “How?”

Syaoran signs and Sakura interprets. “He traveled a lot, with his father. This was their… mission? What does that mean?”

Syaoran shrugs, with no answers forthcoming, and Sakura sighs. Both of them turn to look at the rocky hill (mountain? Island?) on the horizon, the center of gravity that draws both of all gazes.

“I don’t know much about what to expect,” Sakura continues after a moment. “But he can lead the way, and then…” She pauses for a moment, as if daunted by the task that she has set for herself – or that her dreams have set for her. And then her determination surges up again. “And then we’ll figure out what we need to do, and do it.”

Fai’s gaze is fond, and his voice, for once, is honest. “I’m sure we will.”

“How do _you_ know about this place?” Kurogane asks, eyeing him. “Does everyone in the Compounds know this exists?”

“No,” Fai says, giving a bitter half-smile as Sakura and Syaoran turn to him with wide eyes. “It’s a closely guarded secret. The… person I lived with happened to be one of those who had access to that secret.” He laces his fingers together tightly. “He worked there, before.”

“And?” There’s something more to this story.

“And he finally found someone willing to pay him for the location, and for the trained water-caller to accompany them into the Waste. But don’t worry. The expedition wasn’t leaving for a long time yet.”

“Hm,” Kurogane grunts. Fai’s tone is final – that’s all Kurogane will be getting out of him today, so he doesn’t press.

“You’re from the Compounds, Mr. Fai?” Sakura asks tentatively.

Fai lets out a breath and puts on his gentle smile, the one he reserves for Sakura in particular. “I don’t want to talk about it any more today, Miss Sakura,” he says, and Sakura nods and presses his hand as they get up to continue their trek.

They reach the foothills (foundations?) of the hill-mountain-island the next day. First the land starts sloping upward, gently then steeply. And then they have to scramble over large boulders, piled up like rubble along the sloped earth. And then they are standing in front of a rock face that must be at least thirty feet high.

After walking so long on a flat, straight line, Kurogane was woefully unprepared for all of the morning’s scrambling. He takes a moment to catch his breath as he stares at the wall in front of him. Sakura, Syaoran, and especially Fai are in worse shape; Fai is positively wilting in the meager shade provided by a nearby boulder.

Syaoran signs something, and Sakura says, “After we climb this, we’ll be there.” In spite of her red face and obvious exhaustion, her eyes are shining with excitement.

“Rest first,” Kurogane says. There are plenty of possible hand- and footholds in the rock, but he doesn’t want the heat or the morning’s exertions getting into anyone’s heads. He start setting up the tarp and, after a moment, Sakura sighs and comes to help him.

Over a meager meal, the tail end of their supplies, they discuss their plan. Kurogane and Syaoran will climb up first, scouting the best route and bringing their packs. Then they’ll climb down and bring up Fai and Sakura’s packs, showing the two of them the route and letting them climb unencumbered.

“I can climb with my pack,” Sakura protests, undaunted.

“You should save your strength for whatever we find on the other side,” Fai responds. Kurogane is, not for the first time, impressed at his ability to smooth over situations like this. “You’re our leader, after all.” For his part, he doesn’t complain about not carrying anything. His pallor has diminished after their rest, but the climb will still be a challenge.

And it is. As planned, Kurogane and Syaoran scramble up first, going slowly (well,  
_Kurogane_ goes slowly) to map out the best route. The careful ascent takes the better part of twenty minutes, and when Kurogane hauls himself over the lip of the rock wall, he’s breathing hard.

Syaoran has already made it to the top and is looking at the flat surface around them: dead trees, paved roads, and an unassuming concrete structure, the roof of which bristles with old tech. It’s oddly… domestic. Tame.

“This where we’re going?” Kurogane asks, jerking his chin at the building.

Syaoran nods.

“Alright.” He swings the heavy pack off his back and onto the ground, then lowers himself back down on the rock wall, preparing for the descent. “Let’s get the others.”

Syaoran nods again, setting down his pack and climbing down as nimbly as he climbed up. He reaches the ground a few minutes before Kurogane.

“What’s up there?” Fai asks. While they were waiting, he and Sakura disassembled their makeshift shelter and cleaned up the campsite. Their packs are waiting at their feet. Kurogane hefts them both, then straps the heavier one (Sakura’s) to his back.

“A building,” he says. “Old tech stuff. Parking lots.”

Syaoran signs something at Sakura, who frowns and shakes her head in incomprehension. He tries again, spelling it out.

“A hel… heli… pad?” Sakura says.

“Where helicopters land,” Fai says.

Kurogane frowns. “Helicopters?”

Fai looks amused. “We don’t need to worry about that. Come on, Kuro-grumble, Syaoran. Show us the way up.”

“Syaoran, take Sakura up. You,” Kurogane turns to Fai, ignoring the annoying nickname. “Climb with me.” He’s not worried about Sakura. She’s strong. Fai, however, was near death when they first found them, and Kurogane isn’t naive enough to think his death wish has gone away. He sticks close behind Fai during the agonizingly slow climb, pointing out handholds and footholds as Fai, teeth gritted from effort, pulls himself upward. His movements get progressively slower as his strength wanes.

Three feet from the top, he freezes, his whole body shaking. “I can’t. Kuro–”

Kurogane’s arms and shoulders are burning, and his hands feel scraped raw from clinging to rough rock. He grits his teeth and moves to the side, trying to find a new pathway up past Fai. “Hang on.”

“I can’t–” Fai’s arms are locked, his muscles trembling with effort.

“Hang _on_.” Kurogane lets the adrenaline rush of desperation push him up higher on the rock wall, until he’s got one arm hooked over the edge. He turns back just as Fai’s grip gives out. Fai’s wide blue eyes meet Kurogane’s gaze in a desperate plea… and then Kurogane grabs Fai by the wrist, grunting in pain as his left arm takes Fai’s full weight.

Fai’s feet scramble at the wall, finding purchase and allowing him to support some of his weight, using Kurogane’s hand for guidance.

“I didn’t–”

“Shut up,” Kurogane says. He doesn’t have the energy or the focus needed to comfort Fai right now. “Syaoran.”

Syaoran is already hurrying over, having just gotten Sakura to the top. Between him and Kurogane they manage to pull Fai up and over the edge, bringing him forward to stand up on solid ground.

Fai sags against Kurogane, shivering violently with an excess of adrenaline, as he takes in the scene around him. “Well,” he says, putting on a smile. “That was exciting.”

“Are you alright, Mr. Fai?” Sakura asks, coming closer from where she’d been hovering nervously while they pulled Fai up the cliff.

He turns his smile towards her. “Perfectly fine, Miss Sakura.” But his grip is tight like a vice around Kurogane’s wrist, and even as they start walking towards the building, he doesn’t let go.

*

They follow the asphalt path snaking around the building to find its single entrance at the other side of the island. The building itself is made of gray concrete, unadorned, squat and small and much simpler than some of the breathtaking structures that Kurogane has seen on his scouting voyages to Jade City. It’s the tech on the roof that catches the eye: towers, antennae, dishes, precious artifacts that would have been looted ages ago if not for their inaccessibility.

The entrance to the building is a windowless metal door. Above it, there are letters. Kurogane nominally knows how to read – his parents taught him letters, made little books for him to practice with – but the words he tends to recognize on sight are common and necessary: old words all scouts know, like _antibiotic_ , _penicillin_ , _waterproof_ , _hydration_. He doesn’t recognize any of the words on the sign.

Before he can begin painstakingly sounding out the letters, Fai lets go of his arm and steps forward, shading his eyes to stare up at the innocuous sign. “Geoengineering Station No. 314,” he reads. “Clow Lake Reservoir.”

Sakura frowns. “What’s geoengineering?”

“A _very_ bad idea,” Fai says with a thin smile.

Kurogane looks at him.

“It’s the act of ultimate hubris,” Fai says, sounding like he’s quoting someone else. “It’s the power that destroyed the world.”

Before Kurogane or Sakura can press him for more information, they hear a beeping noise. Syaoran has found a covered keypad next to the door, and is entering the code.

“Wait–” Kurogane begins. He’s had experiences like this before, where the wrong combination sets off a chain of alarms and shuts the whole place down. But before he can stop Syaoran, the keypad beeps three times and there’s a click and a thunk as the door unlocks. He frowns. “How did you know that?”

Syaoran looks down at the ground for a moment, then looks up at them all, signing.

“The codes are always the same,” Sakura says, watching Sayoran’s hands. “His father taught them to him.” And then her eyes go wide. “Because his _grandfather…_ he made these places. You never told me that before!”

Syaoran shrugs, looking sheepish, and turns away from Sakura, pushing open the door. Fai reaches out to put his hand on Sakura’s shoulder. “We all have pasts we don’t want to talk about, Miss Sakura. If Syaoran trusts us enough to tell us these painful things now, we should appreciate that for the gift it is.”

Sakura bites her lip, then nods.

“Now go catch up with him,” Fai says and smiles.

Before Fai can follow, Kurogane catches his arm, pulling him back. “And what painful things are you not telling us?” he asks.

Fai looks away. “Nothing quite so useful.”

Kurogane squeezes his arm, just a little bit, and is rewarded by a sharp gasp and a glarefrom Fai, who pulls away. “Tell me.”

“ _Ow_ , Kuro-grumble, that _hurt_.”

“Tell me.”

Fai rubs his arm and shifts, but Kurogane remains unmoved. Finally, he sighs. “Ash– that person who saved me. Who used to work here. He gave me the codes, too. I thought that I’d be able to play the hero and get us into the building, but it looks like Syaoran upstaged me.” His voice is too light. It doesn’t match his expression.

“And the expedition he was going to send?”

“Oh, that’s never getting off the ground. Not anymore,” Fai says, brushing off Kurogane’s question.

“Because you left, and they couldn’t do it without you.”

“I’m hardly that important,” Fai says with a quiet laugh. And then he steps to the side, slipping past Kurogane and into Geoengineering Station No. 314. Kurogane lets out an exasperated breath and follows.

Inside, the building is cool. Dim lights line the ceiling, and their footsteps echo against concrete walls. The whole building hums like a living thing. “Auxiliary generators,” murmurs Fai, who has caught up with Sakura and Syaoran. He looks around with wide, interested eyes. “They have an independent power supply. Running on geothermal energy, I’d imagine, for something as long-lasting as this.”

Syaoran leads them forward. There are a few metal doors in the corridor walls, and Kurogane doesn’t need help reading the useful words on their labels: _Maintenance, Generator, Command_. Syaoran moves past Maintenance and Generator without looking and stops at Command, punching another code into the keypad on the door.

It unlocks with a click.

Inside, the electric hum is louder, and the room is _full_ of old tech. Sakura and Kurogane stop on the threshold, stunned. Even Fai looks surprised. Syaoran, however, walks in like he’s at home here, looking around and then turning to sign at Sakura.

“Before, when he, um, came to these kinds of places, his father would get into the system and turn them off,” Sakura interprets. “To bring things back to normal. Normal?” she asks, frowning at Syaoran.

Syaoran shrugs. None of them know what ‘normal’ means.

“Geoengineering stations were created at the beginning of the Collapse,” Fai says. He’s wandering among the equipment, peering at the switchboards and monitors and softly beeping things. “Human activity had damaged the earth’s climatic systems beyond repair, but people thought they had found a way to stop the worst of it. By seeding the atmosphere with silver-iodide particulates to induce rainfall and – when their early experiments brought about the Deluge – changing their methods in order to stop precipitation altogether, effectively dooming civilization as they knew it.” He looks up to find Kurogane, Sakura, and Syaoran staring at him, and gives his too-broad smile. “I’ve read a lot of books.”

“Right,” Kurogane says, looking around. “So, let’s turn it off.”

Syaoran, shamefaced, signs something to Sakura, who bites her lip.

“He says he doesn’t know how.”

Kurogane looks from Sakura and Syaoran to the machines surrounding them, now seeming much more daunting in their incomprehensibility. There are a few computers in his settlement, carefully maintained and used in organizational tasks, but Kurogane has never needed to touch them. This is far outside his realm of experience.

Fai, on the other hand, is examining each machine in turn, spending more time on some than on others. “Going in blindly could be worse than doing nothing at all,” he says with a frown. “This tech is powerful.” Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t seem to find it, because he looks up at Syaoran after a few moments to say, “You really have no idea?”

Syaoran shakes his head, then looks at Sakura, signing again.

“He says – but how could I do anything? I don’t know how this place works,” Sakura responds, twisting her fingers together. “I just know there’s water somewhere under our feet, a lot of it, and…”

Syaoran looks at her, as if he’s repeating _and?_

Sakura’s face goes distant. “And it’s sad. It doesn’t want to be there anymore.”

Kurogane frowns. “It has feelings?” he asks, glancing at Fai. But Fai looks just as stunned as he is.

“We should go down there,” Sakura says with renewed determination. “How do we get there?”

Syaoran nods and turns, walking out of Command and back to the hallway. They follow him to a small, unlabeled door at the end of the hallway. There’s another keypad here, too, and he presses in a sequence of numbers.

The keypad flashes red three times, giving an angry beep. Syaoran steps back, confused.

“It uses a different code,” Sakura says, frowning as she interprets Syaoran’s signing.

“If we smash it,” Kurogane begins, but Fai puts a hand on his arm and slips past him.

“Wait,” he says, moving up to the keypad. “I think– I hope I know the number.” And he punches it in.

There’s a moment of silence as everyone holds their breath… and then the keypad flashes green three times and the slides open, revealing a ladder into the earth.

“Mr. Fai!” Sakura beams, taking his hand and squeezing it briefly. “How did you know?”

“Someone told me the secret,” Fai says, glancing at Kurogane. “But I never thought I’d make it this far.” His gaze is unreadable.

“Well,” Kurogane says. “We should go down.”

Sakura leads the way down. It gets even cooler in the tunnel, so much so that Kurogane is glad of the way his heavy sun cloak covers his arms. He’s less glad, however, of the bulk of his pack, which scrapes against the other side of the shaft and threatens once or twice to get him stuck. After an uncomfortable ten-foot descent, the space widens around him, and he turns to see… water. More water than he’s ever seen in one place, completely still and reflecting the dim lights overhead. The air even _feels_ wet down here, and Kurogane breathes in deeply with aching lungs.

Fai, too, looks stunned, hanging onto the ladder with one hand like he’s afraid the ground will be yanked out from under him if he lets go.

“It’s drinkable?” Kurogane asks.

Fai glances at him sidelong. “How should I know?”

Sakura and Syaoran are at the edge of the water already. She is kneeling down, bending over the pool, and Syaoran is standing, as always, at her side. She’s discarded her pack and her sun cloak, and her arms are up to the elbows in the water.

“Sakura,” Kurogane begins, but Fai puts a hand on his arm again.

“Hush,” he says. “Something’s happening.”

At first, Kurogane can’t sense whatever Fai is picking up on. The room has the same electrical hum as the rest of the building, but otherwise its stillness is uncanny.  
Then he hears a grinding, creaking noise simultaneously deep in the earth and all around them. The ground begins to shake.

Fai’s hand clenches on his cloak. “Water, freezing and thawing over the seasons, is powerful enough to split rock,” he murmurs quietly at Kurogane’s side. It’s not clear whether he’s speaking to Kurogane or to himself. His eyes are liquid silver now, like the reflections of the fluorescent bulbs in the pool before them. “Water, flowing across one spot, can carve canyons a mile deep. Water is more powerful than humans give it credit for. Sometimes it just needs a little help.”

“What’s happening?” Kurogane demands.

“She’s doing it,” Fai replies. “I never dreamed– She’s _setting it free_.”

There’s another loud groan and a sharp crack, and the humming around them stops as the lights flicker out. In the darkness, Kurogane hears a cacophony of sound: water rushing, metal screeching and tearing, rock breaking. He grabs Fai on instinct, throwing him to the ground and covering him with his body as the world falls apart around them.

*

It’s bright. That’s Kurogane’s first impression when he opens his eyes and blinks up at the sky. It’s bright and he’s lying on his back on the ground, which has half-enveloped him. It takes a moment or two for that thought to become alarming; when it does, Kurogane blinks and levers himself up out of the mud.

Mud?!

It squelches around him not unpleasantly, cool against his skin even in the sun. It’s covered his cloak and his hand and his hair and–

They’d been in the reservoir. On the island.

For the second time in so many minutes, Kurogane startles again, first putting his hand down to his side to make sure his father’s sword is still there. Then he looks around him.

Fai isn’t far off – just a few feet away, also stirring to consciousness. Seeing him eases a tension in Kurogane’s chest that he didn’t realize existed. They’re in a muddy wash that seems to extend outward from the island, which, first of all, is far away. Second of all, half of it seems to be missing.

Sakura did that.

Where’s Sakura?

Kurogane starts to stagger to his feet, ignoring the protest of his aching muscles, the small pains and bruises that makes himself known as he moves.

“Kuro…?” Fai murmurs, half-conscious.

“I’m looking for the kids. You, stay here.” And he begins to walk across the muddy ground, which sucks at his feet with every step. There had been so much water in the reservoir, and now it’s soaking into the ground and evaporating into the sky. Kurogane thinks, with some regret, of their mostly empty canteens – if the contents of their packs have survived the force of water that carried them away from the island.

Luckily Kurogane finds his pack, and Fai’s, not far from where they ended up. It takes a bit more time to find the kids.  
He walks away from the island, tracing the way the water has fanned out into the old lakebed. Into its own lakebed, he thinks, before realizing that he’s coming up with nonsense like Fai. Sakura and Syaoran are at the very edge of the mud, as if they were carried at the very front of the torrent. Syaoran is curled around her protectively. Both are still and pale.

There’s a moment where Kurogane just stands there, afraid to move closer and to find out – to find out that he failed. But then he steels himself and approaches, steps tentative, to squat down next to Syaoran and touch his shoulder.

It’s cold.

But that’s the effect of the water, Kurogane realizes with a wave of relief as Syaoran stirs.

“Kid,” he says. “Get up.”

Syaoran blinks his eyes open and looks around him with a frown, taking in his surroundings. And then he startles and turns to Sakura, who hasn’t moved.

“She’s alive,” Kurogane says after checking her pulse, her breathing. “She’ll wake up soon.” Hopefully. If she hit her head or anything like that… she might not wake up. Or she might wake up different. And Kurogane doesn’t know if they’ll have the luxury of waiting for her to recover, not here in the Waste.

Syaoran bites the inside of his cheek and touches Sakura’s face.

“Ah, you found them.” Unsurprisingly, Fai has ignored Kurogane’s command to stay where he is, and Kurogane can’t be particularly annoyed about it. Especially because Fai has both of their packs in tow. He’s smiling, but his face falls as he takes in the scene. “Sakura?”

Kurogane turns back to her. Syaoran hasn’t looked away; his entire focus is on the girl in front of him as he gently moves her into a more comfortable position, checking her head, her neck for any bumps or breaks. When he notices Kurogane and Fai watching, he nods. There’s nothing wrong with her that they can see. So they’ll just have to wait.

“Sensing water takes a fair amount of energy,” Fai says, putting their packs in the mud (it won’t get them any dirtier than they already are) and squatting down. “Communicating with it… I imagine that’s another level entirely. I’ve never seen anyone do something like that. I didn’t know it was possible.” He stares off into the middle distance.

Kurogane watches him. There’s mud in his hair and spattering his clothing, smeared across one cheek as if Fai forgot his hands were dirty when he rubbed his face. His eyes are blue and far away. “Is it what you wanted?”

Fai blinks and glances up at Kurogane. “I – well. Originally I wanted to die, and take the secret with me.”

Kurogane says nothing, just waits, and eventually Fai adds, “But I thought – on the cliff – I didn’t _actually_ want that. For once, I wanted to know what happened next. And I’m… glad I saw this. It’s what needed to be done.”

When Kurogane still doesn’t look away, Fai gives a breathless laugh. “What? Are you happy now? Isn’t that enough?”

He still hasn’t given more than hints about his past, about his ties to this place. But the island is destroyed and with it, Kurogane imagines, most of the building. Sakura has accomplished her mission, and Fai is still here. “It’s enough,” he concedes.

Behind them, there’s a cough, and they both whirl around to see Sakura opening her eyes. Syaoran signs at her in a flurry of hands.

“I’m fine,” she says, smiling and taking both of Syaoran’s hands in hers. “I’m fine and it really worked!” Syaoran helps her pull herself upright and out of the mud, and she looks at them all with shining eyes. “I thought it was a dream.”

“It’s no dream,” Fai says, mirroring her smile. “You did it, Miss Sakura. You righted a great wrong. You _changed_ things.”

Sakura opens her mouth to reply, then freezes, her gaze going over Fai’s head. “Look,” she says, pointing behind them. “ _Clouds_!”

As one, they turn to look towards the island behind them. Forming in the sky above it is a towering gray cloud that seems to gather strength and grow even as they watch. Kurogane hasn’t seen clouds like this since – ever, really. He was born after after Deluge, when the world had begun to dry.

“Things are moving again,” Fai murmurs, quietly enough that Kurogane is the only one to hear it. “Good.”

They make camp that night at the edge of the newly formed mudflat, all of them transfixed by the clouds billowing in the sky. Tomorrow, they’ll return to the remains of the island to see if they can find the cached food and supplies that Syaoran assures them will be there. For now, they rest and watch in awe as the sun, for the first time perhaps since the Waste existed, is covered by clouds.

That night, during Kurogane’s watch in the early hours of the morning, the clouds open. Rain patters against the tarp they’ve set up for their shelter and lands softly on the dry earth around them. The air smells fresh and _new_ in a way that Kurogane has never experienced. It’s intoxicating, and he finds himself moving out from under the tarp to stand in the soft fall of water.

The rain brings with it a soft, cool breeze that plays over Kurogane’s face, and he feels… boundless. As if something in the world long broken has now been set right, as if now things can grow. He can grow.

“It’s beautiful,” Fai murmurs, and Kurogane doesn’t even startle when he realize that Fai has crept up unnoticed to stand beside him. He has his face tilted up towards the sky so that the rain can wet his cheeks, his hair.

Kurogane wonders if Fai feels the same thing he does, like the world is settling back into a pattern that’s older than humanity itself. He must. “What does it feel like, the rain? Can you sense it all the way up in the clouds?”

“I’m not a water-caller, Kuro-grumble. How should I know?”

Kurogane doesn’t believe him, but he lets it rest. “Does this mean things are changing?”

Fai takes a deep breath and lets it out, closing his eyes for a few moments before responding. “Locally, yes. But there are more of those stations out there, still functioning. Syaoran and his father took care of some, but the job isn’t finished.” He straightens up a little and glances sidelong at Kurogane, his expression almost tentative. “Maybe we could take care of the rest.”

Kurogane raises his eyebrows, meeting Fai’s gaze. “We?”

Fai’s lips twitch in an almost-smile. It’s the most honest expression he’s ever given Kurogane. “You, me, Syaoran, Sakura. Don’t get ahead of yourself.” But he puts his hand on Kurogane’s arm and lets it rest there for a long moment before he turns to slip back into their shelter.

The next morning, the clouds are gone and the ground is mostly dry. But there’s a breeze that plays around their hands and ruffles their clothes, and as they trudge back to the island, unsure of what awaits them, Fai is smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are reading this fic before September 18, 2020, please consider heading over to the [Kurofai Olympics google form](https://forms.gle/FLNVYFdMuLfraGkKA) and scoring my fic (no dreamwidth account required)! Author: mikkary, category: Apocalyptic AU.


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